


celebration is resistance

by thequeerwithoutfear



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, Gen, Matt Murdock Has SPD and You Can Fight Me, Matt Murdock Will Be Happy And You Can Just Try to Pry That Happiness From My Cold Dead Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6369106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeerwithoutfear/pseuds/thequeerwithoutfear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You only know the bad things about sensory processing as strong as yours. That’s all you were taught, because that’s what’s relevant to your vigilante crime-fighting superhero Defender of Hell’s Kitchen schtick. And believe me, I know, there’s a lot of pretty shitty things to it. A lot of terrible sounds and smells and textures. Especially here. But there’s some pretty great things to it, too, that people who aren’t like us never get to know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	celebration is resistance

They had been wandering aimlessly around the apartment for the past ten minutes, picking holes in the couch, lifting up and setting back down everything in the kitchen, running interested fingers over plastic Braille labels and soft scarves. Finally, they stopped next to him where he was pouring flour into a bowl to make pancakes, waiting for him to turn towards them. When he did, his face was earnest, back bent slightly so he was closer to facing them, so they didn’t have to lean up so far to look at him. He waited for them to speak, hearing in their breath the hitch that meant they were ready to.

“Matt,” they said, finally, when they were confident he was paying attention, their voice solid and sincere and a little annoyed. “Matthew Michael Murdock.” He felt a thrill of anxiety at being addressed by his full name – a little bit of wild, confused guilt like a child about to be yelled at by his mother for something he didn’t remember doing – and so it was all the more confusing when they said, simply–

“Why aren’t you sticking your hand in that bowl of flour.”

“…What.”

“You heard me, buddy; you’d have heard me if I had whispered it from two blocks away. Why aren’t you sticking your hand in that bowl of flour?”

“I just… “ He was stuttering now, incredibly confused. “I just- why would I- I didn’t- I- I don’t- why are you-”

Gently, slowly, so he had plenty of time to pull away, they took his wildly gesticulating hand in their own. Their hands were so distinct against his large calloused ones, their rings a familiar difference to the feel of their skin, warmed by their body heat but still with a different temperature conveyance, the band-aid on their pointer finger where they had chewed at the cuticle rough and plasticky. And then they plunged both of their hands into the bowl of flour above the wrist.

He nearly gasped a little at the softness of it, at the way it felt like one thing and billions all at once, at its smoothness and its powderiness, the weird domestic contradictions of it around his hand, and their hand next to his.

“That’s what I thought,” they said, triumphantly and sadly at the same time. “You don’t know what to do with your wacky heightened super senses, do you?”

“Hey now,” he said, barely able to make himself sound offended with his hand still in the flour and totally unwilling to take it out. “I’m using my senses just fine. I know how to identify if someone’s lying, predict someone’s movements. I stop crime. I protect innocent people-”

They cut him off abruptly.

“No, Batman. I mean that you don’t know how to use them for good, you nerd. Really for good. I mean using them in a way that doesn’t just suck all the time.”

He was going to protest that halting crime seemed like using them for good, but they continued before he could.

“You only know the bad things about sensory processing as strong as yours. That’s all you were taught, because that’s what’s relevant to your vigilante crime-fighting superhero Defender of Hell’s Kitchen schtick. And believe me, I know, there’s a lot of pretty shitty things to it. A lot of terrible sounds and smells and textures. Especially here. But there’s some pretty great things to it, too, that people who aren’t like us never get to know. They never hit those extremes. Not the rotten extremes that you live in all the time, but also not the amazing ones that we're gonna work on now.” 

They sounded resolved, now, and he could practically hear their mind whirring with ideas coming into place. They rubbed the flour between their thumb and fingers one last time before withdrawing their hand and running for notetaking supplies, leaving little particles of flour all down the hallway. Matt removed his hand more reluctantly, settling on the couch resignedly, knowing there was no point trying to slow them down until they were ready to tell him their plan.

“I,” they said, launching themself onto the couch like a particularly excited squirrel, “am going to give you the Official Patented Nice Things Tour of Sensory Processing Disorder… O-P-N-T-T-S-P-D... Ohpntut-SPD… The name is a work in progress.”

“Come on, Ahdnpt-spud, really?” he said, sighing a little. “I know how to feel nice things. You don’t have to show me-”

“Matt,” they said again, brandishing a small metal stylus, the same tone of annoyance and sincerity back in their voice. “Firstly, it’s Ohpntut-SPD, obviously. Secondly, you spend your days in business suits in a stuffy office and your nights punching people in the face in stinking alleys with rough brick walls. You don’t have a clue.”

He didn’t have much to say in response to that, especially since his ribs were still twinging a bit from where he had been dragged against a sandpaper-grade wall.

“Alright,” they said, using the stylus to aggressively punch away at a thick piece of paper through a small plastic Braille slate. “Alright. Today, we’re going to take a break from punching things for like five minutes and get our hair shampooed, and find a cat, and touch a bunch of soft yarn, and maybe buy some marbles…” They trailed off, continuing to write up haphazard scavenger-hunt-like plans for the day. 

Eventually, they shoved the Brailled list into Matt’s hands. He ran his fingers over “gotta g buy .5s wrapping paper s we c run scissors .5th x. no punching things td. tm y c g back to punching things i guess” and smiled. 

Matt knew there was no arguing the matter. The pancakes would have to wait. Besides, he was kind of excited to find out what they meant about the marbles.

**Author's Note:**

> “Gotta g buy .5s wrapping paper s we c run scissors .5th x. no punching things td. tm y c g back to punching things i guess” is "gotta go buy some wrapping paper so we can run scissors through it. no punching things today. tomorrow you can go back to punching things i guess" with UEB Braille Grade 2 shortforms, which would make more sense if they were actually Brailled, but we're going for it. 
> 
> To anyone else with SPD who cares about Daredevil because of it. Keep kicking ass. 
> 
> You can find me yelling about Matt Murdock being autistic on Tumblr at thequeerwithoutfear.tumblr.com, and feel free to drop me a message or whatever.


End file.
